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French
Overview French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in 29 countries across five different continents, most of which are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 84 countries which share the official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France, Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick as well as other Francophone regions, Belgium (Wallonia and Brussels), western Switzerland (cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel, Vaud, Valais), Monaco, parts of the United States (Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont), and by various communities elsewhere. In 2015, approximately 40% of the francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania. French is the fourth most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as a second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. French is also the 18th most natively spoken language in the world, and is the second most studied language worldwide (with about 120 million current learners). As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. French is estimated to have about 76 million native speakers, and another 77 to 110 million secondary speakers who speak it as a second language to varying degrees of proficiency, mainly in Africa. According to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie(OIF), approximately 274 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language", without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses. According to a demographic projection led by the Université Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la francophonie, the total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050. OIF estimates 700 million by 2050, 80% of whom will be in Africa. French has a long history as an international language of literature and scientific standards and is a primary or second language of many international organisations including the United Nations, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the World Trade Organization, the International Olympic Committee, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. History ue to Roman rule, Latin was gradually adopted by the inhabitants of Gaul, and as the language was learned by the common people it developed a distinct local character, with grammatical differences from Latin as spoken elsewhere, some of which being attested on graffiti. This local variety evolved into the Gallo-Romance tongues, which include French and its closest relatives, such as Arpitan. The Celtic Gaulish language is thought to have survived into the 6th century in France, despite considerable Romanization. Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques (including oui, the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. Recent computational studies suggest that early gender shifts may have been motivated by the gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The beginning of French in Gaul was greatly influenced by Germanic invasions into the country. These invasions had the greatest impact on the northern part of the country and on the language there. A language divide began to grow across the country. The population in the north spoke langue d'oïl while the population in the south spoke langue d'oc. Langue d'oïl grew into what is known as Old French. The period of Old French spanned between the 8th and 14th centuries. Old French shared many characteristics with Latin. For example, Old French made use of all possible word orders just as Latin did. Within Old French many dialects emerged but the Francien dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th century–17th century). Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect. Grammatically, during the period of Middle French, noun declensions were lost and there began to be standardized rules. Robert Estienne published the first Latin-French dictionary, which included information about phonetics, etymology, and grammar. Politically, the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) named French the language of law. French excerpt from Wikipedia article "Français" La majorité du fonds lexical français provient du latin (en tant que langue-mère) ou bien est construit à partir des racines gréco-latines. De nombreux termes possèdent un doublon de même étymologie, l’un ayant évolué à travers les siècles à partir du latin populaire tandis que l’autre est emprunté directement au latin classique : métier/ministère, façon/faction, raide/rigide, froid/frigide, frêle/fragile, rançon/rédemption, raison/ration, poison/potion, chance/cadence, etc. Souvent l'invention de mots à partir d’un mot bien français passe par un emprunt à sa forme en latin classique : mère/maternel, frère/fraternel, cheveu/capillaire, foi/fidèle, œil/oculaire, sûr/sécurité, siècle/séculaire, etc.. On ignore jusqu’à quel point la langue gauloise a pu influencer le français. Son apport lexical se réduirait à une centaine de mots, tels que char/charrue, mouton, crème, dont une partie proviendrait d’emprunts du latin au gaulois. L’étymologie de ces expressions n’est d’ailleurs pas toujours assurée. Quant à son influence sur la syntaxe et la prononciation, elle est également indéterminée. Le francique, en tant que superstrat, a laissé également quelques mots importants (gris, blanc, blond, bleu, etc.) et aurait fortement influencé la prononciation du roman du nord de la Gaule, autrement dit des langues d'oïlet du proto-français. Ce proto-français, dialecte de langue d’oïl parlé en Île-de-France au Haut Moyen Âge, qui est à l’origine du français d’aujourd'hui, est parfois désigné par le terme francien. Mais celui-ci a été inventé en 1889 par Gaston Paris, un linguiste français, pour désigner ce dialecte médiéval qui très tôt, en fait, dès le xiie siècle avec l’essor de Paris, s’est enrichi des autres parlers d’oïl : normand, picard, lorrain, bourguignon. Le terme francien''n’était pas utilisé par les gens qui le parlaient, puisqu’il était déjà nommé ''franceis puis françois (sans confusion possible car, à l'origine, le domaine royal du roi de France, partie du royaume de France sous contrôle direct du roi, se limitait à une partie de l’actuelle Île-de-France, et sa langue d’oïl locale, le françoys, était encore bien distincte de celle des autres régions environnantes non encore rattachées au royaume dont certaines sans allégeance à celui-ci). Avant le xiie siècle, il était question de roman ou de langues romanes, qui étaient plus ou moins mutuellement intelligibles. C’est pourquoi une désignation commune de langue(s) d’oïl a été donnée. Dès lors que ces dialectes devinrent moins mutuellement intelligibles, les locuteurs leur donnèrent le nom de normand, gallo, angevin, françois, picard, wallon, , etc.. Le français parlé aujourd’hui tire son nom de cet ancien franceis, qui a évolué lentement vers un parler supra-régional à partir des xie et xiie siècles (franceis frãntsëé → françoys/''françois'' frãswé → français frãsé). Les autres langues d’oïl disparurent petit à petit au fur et à mesure que le français prenait du prestige, mais aussi parce que les langues d’oïl étaient très proches du françois. Cela explique pourquoi, a contrario, malgré un recul encore constaté, les langues ou dialectes romans non d’oïl (variétés de l'occitan, franco-provençal/arpitan, royasque, ligure, corse) et les langues non romanes (breton, flamand, francique lorrain, alsacien, basque) persistèrent ou résistèrent davantage, même si les premiers (surtout les variétés occitanes) ont eux aussi enrichi la langue française (qui s'est également enrichie depuis de nombreux apports d'autres langues, dont l'arabe, l'italien, le turc, les langues autochtones et créoles d'outremer et des anciennes colonies françaises, et aujourd'hui l'anglais et les langues natives apportées par les migrations et relations internationales de la France et des autres pays francophones). 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